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This latest edition of the weekly Oroville home salesroundup shows that the Lake Oroville real estate market may finally be normalizing.

Price stabilization seems to be taking hold as monthly median prices have barely moved over the past 12 months. Between April 1, 2014 and March 31, 2015 the median Oroville area home price (the midpoint price of all homes sold) was $145,000. During this time, the highest monthly median price was September 2014 at $159,000 and the lowest price being recorded this March at $128,895. In addition, March was the first month since May 2013 that the monthly median price was lower in the current year than it was in the same month of the previous year.

There are two things that you should be watching very closely if you are trying to gauge the health of the Oroville real estate market. One of those things is Continue reading →

Well, well, well what do we have here in the Lake Oroville area? The end of the Oroville foreclosure market?

Looking at this week’s home sales data for the Greater Oroville area you might draw such a conclusion being there was not ONE foreclosed property that sold in the past week. (see the red highlighted stat). To bolster your conclusion you may also point to the fact that this is the first week since I have been tracking this number dating back to October 2009 that there has not been at least one bank-owned Oroville home that has sold.

As I prepared to share this week’s Oroville real estate information with you my plan was to caution you that we should certainly expect to see more foreclosure sales take place and that it is a little early to say the foreclosure market in the Oroville area has met with extinction. However, as I was typing the first paragraph of this weekly editorial, and because I am such a great multitasker, I began think that I may be…..yes, wrong!

Maybe the “foreclosure market” IS over! Oh sure, there are still bank-owned homes for sale, but does the current inventory of Oroville bank-owned homes (19 homes, or less than 10% of the available inventory) actually constitute a “market?” I wonder?

OK, I know that this is not the most well produced real estate video that any of you in the Oroville real estate markets, or the real estate markets of Paradise and Chico, CA. have ever seen.

Quite frankly I hadn’t even intended for this video to go beyond the eyes of my client. But, then I thought, “Aw, what the heck,” I might as well let all of you see the how cool some of my latest and greatest technology is helping me help my customers. This video was shot and entirely produced entirely on my iPhone5 with a really awesome app that is actually still being beta tested. The amazing thing is that it only took about 10 minutes to put it all together once the images were recorded on the phone.

I would be happy to provide this service to any of you out there in the real estate markets that I serve including the market for Oroville homes, Paradise homes and homes in Chico and Sutter and Yuba Counties.

As I continue my journey into converting from a text based blog to one of video for the real estate markets of the Lake Oroville, Chico, Paradise, Gridley areas as well as the home selling markets of Yuba City and Marysville, I put together the following video which ever so briefly discusses what happens when all the stars line up just right and a seller does all the right things to get their home sold in the shortest amount of time.

I am still a little rough around the edges with my video production capabilities and I certainly would welcome any thoughts, suggestions, and even criticisms of these videos to help me make them look a little more polished.

It has been far too long since we last had some quality time together. When I first started this blog it seemed I was blogging 3 or 4 times per week. Lately, though it has been more like 3 or 4 times per year.

Don’t ask me why I had lost my enthusiasm for commenting on the real estate markets of Lake Oroville, Chico, Paradise and the surrounding areas. I guess it just seemed like that I could not muster up an effort to comment on what seemed to be a dismally depressed real estate market.

Or maybe I was just dismally depressed. Whatever the reason, I have been feeling for a while now that it is time to get this blog up and moving forward again. Market conditions both locally and nationally have been changing lately and it seems a good time to get back into the swing of things.

Let’s get restarted by taking a look at this article that I found at Inman News. While reading this “gloom and doom” titled column I want you to tell me what is missing from this article that discusses the state of the foreclosure market on a national level. I think what you do not see in this article is why I have told all of you since the beginning of this blog to keep your perspective on things. We’ll pick up on our discussion when you get done reading.

So what did you NOT see in this article about the number of foreclosures on the market?

You get a gold star if you said that the word CALIFORNIA did not appear in the article. That’s right, the state that was hit as hard or harder by the foreclosure mess than any other state in the Union does not even get a mention in a report that says the number of foreclosures in this country is still at an all time high.
This is why I keep updated links on this site showing the latest foreclosure filings in, not only the Lake Oroville real estate market, but also the real estate markets of Chico, Paradise, Yuba City and Marysville areas. As they say, all real estate is local. It is ok to keep yourself abreast of the national real estate market, because quite frankly, and I am sorry to say, it seems to be the national numbers that set the mood of the country. But it is your job to set the mood of this state and this local Oroville real estate market by staying informed on the local markets. Only time will tell, but it seems that the light at the end of the tunnel is no longer a gigantic freight train.

For those of you in the Lake Oroville housing market and the real estate markets of Chico, Paradise, Yuba City, Marysville, Gridley, Biggs and Durham, who did not see the Facebook posting I made on my business page yesterday at Facebook/RealtyWorld.CA, and, since I have not seen this recommendation from any other area real estate agent anywhere on the ‘net, I will repeat what I advised my Facebook readers to do:

If you are working on a loan for the purchase or refinance of a home, you need to have a SERIOUS discussion with your lender about locking your interest rate ASAP.

As a former financial advisor with a major Wall Street firm, I have seen this type of market volatility before and I will tell you that when you get the gigantic drop that the stock market took today and the huge drop in interest rates that came with it, there is a better possibility that that stocks and interest rates will “bounce” off these lows very quickly, then there is of rates continuing to fall in a fashion that makes it worth the risk to “wait and see” what happens.

There are two events coming up that make it a good idea to consider locking your rate as soon as your loan officer is available to do this for you.

1. The monthly employment numbers will be released tomorrow. If the numbers are at all better than analysts are expecting, or even in line with expectations, I anticipate that interest rates will tick up slightly. If, as some suspect, the number is worse than the overall consensus expectation you may see rates tick down on the news. But not by much (unless the number is some off the wall number like 10% unemployment).

2. The weekend is here. In a volatile market like this, and with rates as low as they are now, waiting through the weekend may cost you. If there is any positive economic developments from the international markets over the weekend it most likely will cause some upward movement in rates before your feet even hit the floor Monday morning.

Obviously, there is no way to know exactly what rates are going to do in the coming days, and , as I am no longer a professional financial advisor, the above comments should not be considered financial advice. I want you to be sure and make your own decision about this based on your current financial situation in consultation with your personal finance management team.

I just received an e-mail from the CEO of REALTY WORLD -Northern Ca/Nevada with an attached article discussing the latest foreclosure numbers for the State of California.

Now, normally I would proclaim to all of you in the Lake Oroville real estate market that all real estate is local and that it is much more important to stay in tune with the local home sales numbers as opposed to general reports on the market. While this is still my philosophy, I do not think it is at all wise to IGNORE reports on the broader markets. After all, it is the broader markets that get the media coverage when it comes to just about anything real estate these days. Like it or not the media has a lot of influence on the consumer’s psyche that helps in creating the mindset that consumers are using when making decisions on whether to buy or sell a home. If you are a regular reader of this blog site that serves the real estate housing markets of Oroville, Chico, Paradise, Yuba City, and Marysville California you know that I do not believe any improvement will occur in this housing market until we have two things: Employment and consumer confidence.

It is becuase of the latter of these two vital ingredients that I want to share excerpts from the article posted on DQNews.com.

The number of California homes that went into foreclosure fell to a four-year low last quarter, the result of a more stable housing market as well as policy changes in the mortgage servicing industry, a real estate information service reported.

Last quarter’s activity was the lowest for any quarter since 53,493 NoDs were recorded in the second quarter of 2007. It was well below half the record135,431 default notices recorded in the first quarter of 2009.

A total of 56,633 Notices of Default (NoDs) were recorded at county recorders offices during the April-to-June period. That was down 17.0 percent from 68,239 for the prior quarter, and down 19.2 percent from 70,051 in second-quarter 2010, according to San Diego-based DataQuick.

Mortgages were least likely to go into default in San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo counties. The probability was highest in Kings, Sutter and Yuba counties.

Trustees Deeds recorded (TDs), or the actual loss of a home to foreclosure, totaled 42,465 during the second quarter. That was down 1.4 percent from 43,052 for the prior quarter, and down 10.9 percent from 47,669 for second-quarter 2010. The all-time peak was 79,511 in third-quarter 2008.

Last quarter’s trustees deeds total was the lowest since35,431 were filed in fourth quarter 2010, and the second-lowest since fourth quarter 2007, when 31,676 were filed.

Now, let’s be clear here. Even with this “encouraging” news, we have a long long way to go until the real estate market is healthy again. But it is important to understand, especially for you buyers out there who are still waiting for things to go lower, that this market is so beat up right now that, if this type of news consistently continues over the next two or three quarters, it is very possible to see some firming up of prices and maybe even some very modest price increases. Just food for thought.

In speaking with a number of lenders that serve the Oroville real estate market, there seems to be an increase in the number of prospective borrowers who aren’t listening to the instructions their loan officers are giving them during the loan process which is jeopardizing the purchase of their homes.

Today’s public service message is short and sweet to homebuyer’s everywhere:

LISTEN UP!!!

When your loan officer tells you not to buy anything using your credit card during the loan process…..Listenup!

When your loan officer tell you to be sure you have a paper trail for ANY funds you receive during the loan process….Listenup!

When your loan officer tells you that any gift funds that someone is willing to give you must not go directly into your bank accounts…Listen up!

When your loan officer tells you not to deposit those “stashed under the mattress” funds into your accounts….Listen up!

As a borrower you must understand that the loan qualification does not end when your lender pre-qualifies you for a loan. Any changes to your financial position before your home purchase is COMPLETE will affect your ability to procure your loan. In most cases the effect is that you disqualify yourself for your loan.

Your lender will be monitoring your financial situation throughout the loan process and WILL be aware of changes to it. Be sure that you not only hear what your loan professional is telling you, but also be sure to LISTEN UP!!

If you do, you will find that the loan process is much simpler and less stressful.

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